Absolute Assurance?
By Joe Moreaux
“If you died tonight, do you have absolute assurance that you would go to Heaven?”
Catholics have a moral assurance of salvation if they are faithful to keep God’s commandments. “Any by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3) If they die in that state, they are assured heaven. This is what we strive for, as opposed to experiencing this:
Matthew 7:21-23": Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.
To enter Heaven, one must be perfectly holy, because “nothing unclean shall enter it.” (Revelation 21:27). “And who shall be able to think of the day of his coming? and whp shall stand to see him? For he is like a refining fire” (Malachi 3:2).
The cleansing and purifying of any remaining venial sin, or of any reparation owed for absolved mortal sins, which makes us fit for God’s holy presence, is what Catholics call Purgatory. This is clearly indicated in St. Paul’s writings: “Each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire and the fire will test what sort of work each has done…If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself, will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
If one is in a state of grace, having examined their conscience, being sacramentally united to Our Lord (Baptism, Confession, Eucharist), then one can know they are on a path to Heaven without any scruple. The Protestant can never fully know, because Protestantism teaches that saving faith will produce good works as the fruit of that faith, and yet they can never completely know if the works they practice are sufficient to qualify as those which culminate from saving faith. If they privately wrestle with reoccurring sin, they do not know if they were ever saved to begin with.
The Catholic, on the other hand, knows that God absolves our sins when we confess them with a penitent and contrite heart in the Sacrament of Confession. The Catholic knows that the Mass gives us graces to continue to strive for virtue and combat vice. The Catholic does not base their conviction on a subjective or sentimental feeling. Rather, we base it on the objective truth that we are not sinless, yet God truly forgives our sins as we confess them, and gives us the grace to grow in holiness.
